Our weekend trip.

We got home from Columbus at about 11 last night...it was a great weekend! Angelo was very, very excited to make his First Communion. He was running around the yard the night before saying, "Tomorrow I get to take the blood and body of Christ!" which is not something you'd typically hear from an eight-year-old boy! And when he came back up the aisle after the communion, he had a look of pure joy on his face. I'm so happy that it was important to him to take that step in his life.

Our present to him was a sterling silver tie tack to go with his snazzy new suit and tie.

Such a cutie pie!

Here's Angelo with his dad Craig and his mom Julie:

I only got a couple of pictures at church...here's my father-in-law John with Gianna:

Look at this gorgeous boy!

Here are the kids with their mom Julie and her boyfriend Andrew. This was the first big family event since Julie and her husband Craig split up a couple of years ago, and since Andrew came into their lives, so everyone was feeling a little nervous about how it would go, but everything went really smoothly. The kids come first, for all of us, and I think that has helped. It was nice to get to spend a few days with Andrew and get to know him better.

"Can we stop smiling now?"

Todd's dad, Todd, the kiddies, me, and Todd's sisters Julie and Lisa.

We took a nice picture of Todd and his sisters later on:

So that was Saturday--we had Mass/First Communion in the morning, and then a big lunch with Angelo's dad's family. They had three cousins all celebrating their First Communion together, so it was a really special day for their family.

Sunday we took A & G out to pick up some crafts to work on together. Angelo and Todd made a wooden plane and helicopter:

(Angelo was making goofy faces, in case you can't tell)...and Gianna and I made some little bobblehead cats that we blinged up with gems and glitter:

We spent the rest of the time just hanging out, playing cornhole, kicking the soccer ball, playing on the swingset, etc. The weather was great, a little cool, but mostly sunny, so we could be outside a lot.

Look at this gorgeous picture I got of Miss Gianna:

Monday morning, everyone went off to work or school, or to catch their plane, but Todd and I didn't have to fly out till late afternoon, so we went to the used bookstore, a couple of antique shops, and had lunch at my favorite restaurant so I could have their Fruity Chicken, which is just a scoop of the world's best chicken salad served with melon, strawberries and grapes piled all around it. It used to come with a muffin, but now you have to order your muffin separately, which I did.

We used to live in Westerville, so it was fun to drive around and see how things have changed and visit a couple of the places we liked to go when we lived there. We also got hamburgers on Sunday at the best burger joint ever.

At the antique stores, I found a McCoy vase and a McCoy bowl for excellent prices, so I had them wrapped up really well in bubble wrap, and then we hit a Goodwill near the airport and found a duffle bag/knapsack so that I could put the pottery in there along with my purse and carry it on the plane. I also had to mail a couple of books and a couple other antique store finds, plus some scrapbook paper, home to myself, so I'm hoping that package will show up here tomorrow.

Since we only had a fifty-pound limit on our suitcase, we had to do some shuffling of items, and it was a good thing I mailed that extra stuff home, because we were right over the limit when we checked in. We grabbed a couple things out of the side pocket to bring the weight down to 49.9 lbs. and then we had to figure out where to cram those things into our carry-ons, too! It's a good thing we restrained ourselves on the shopping, because there was just no more room anywhere.

I unwrapped my bowl and vase this morning and they survived the trip just fine. Now I'm working my way through laundry and hoping with all my heart that we can pick up our other car tonight so I can get my regular life back!